Although Westminster isn't for her, another jungle appears to have its attractions for Joanna Lumley.

The star of Absolutely Fabulous and saviour of the Gurkhas professes a love of reality television and claims that she has been beating at the doors to the Celebrity Big Brother house to be allowed in after Stephanie Beacham.

"Maybe the time will come and they will weaken," she told me at the National Television Awards at the 02 centre in London. "They will get on to the Z list and I will be there."

Meanwhile, Stephen Fry, who was lauded at the ceremony by the Prince of Wales as a "national treasure", admitted he was pleased not to be hosting the event. "I'd be very happy never to present or host another awards ceremony," he told me. Some hope.

Fine to be 'fattist'

As the debate rages about the extent to which the NHS should assist obese people, Nigel Lythgoe, the television talent show judge, says it is important in showbusiness to point out to performers when they are getting too fat.

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He is unrepentant about reducing Kym Marsh, the actress and singer, to tears when he told her on Popstars: "Christmas has gone, but I see the goose is still fat." He now says: "I don't think it was negative. Telling someone they are carrying too much weight is important if they are going to be a performer. I don't class it as belittling someone."

Alliance is agreed

There is one merger that Martin Stanley, the former head of the Competition Commission, is happy to nod through: his son, Edward, has become engaged to his girlfriend, Katharine Hubbard.

Stanley senior, who last year became interim chief executive of the Turks and Caicos Islands government following an inquiry into alleged corruption in the previous administration, tells me he couldn't think of a merger that had made him happier.

Edward and Katharine, both 26, met at Cambridge when they were working on a production of The Mikado.

Edward, who is now a solicitor in London, says, spookily enough, that his fiancée's parents had also met when they were working on the same Gilbert and Sullivan opera. After seven years together, they plan to marry next summer in Cambridge.